A certain widely-used product dispenser is releasably locked to and supported by a wall-attached plate having a certain standard length. The traditional dispenser has a coin mechanism which accepts quarters. The product storage cabinet portion of the dispenser was originally designed to hold a certain number of product units at a then prevailing price per unit, such as two quarters. The coin receptacle at the bottom of the dispenser was designed to hold the number of quarters required to completely exhaust the product supply in the dispenser. The dispenser has been traditionally manufactured in single or multiple storage column forms and the principle or concept applies to either case.
Traveling operators of these dispensers sometimes have routes spanning 1000 miles or more, and periodically they resupply the dispensers along the route with the product and collect the coins which have accumulated in the coin box at each location.
In recent years, the dispensed product like all other commodities have increased in cost and the product unit selling price has become three quarters and in some cases four quarters. This has created a serious problem for the machine operators because, if they completely fill the dispenser with the product, the capacity of the coin box is exceeded. As a consequence, the operators are forced to only partly fill the dispenser with the product and the dispenser will be empty for a long time before the operator can again resupply it on his rounds. This causes an obvious economic hardship, and it is the main object of this invention to deal successfully and economically with the above-stated problem.
In the traditional dispenser structure, the bottom wall of the dispenser is level during normal usage and projects forwardly of the wall-attached dispenser support plate at the bottom thereof and at right angles thereto. Interfitting elements on the dispenser bottom wall and the lower end of the support plate allow unlocking the top of the dispenser and pivoting it forwardly and away from the wall-attached plate to refill the dispenser, followed by returning the dispenser by a swinging movement to a vertical position against the wall-attached support plate and locking it to this plate at the top of the dispenser with a key.
A main objective of the invention is to preserve this simple and convenient mode of operation while greatly increasing the coin holding capacity of the dispenser and while avoiding any lengthening or restructuring of the standard length wall-attached support plate.
This objective is accomplished in the invention by extending the bottom of the dispenser body, the coin box therein and the armored guard around the lower portion of the dispenser downwardly and forwardly from the lower end of the support plate preferably at an angle of about 45 degrees to the adjacent wall. This tapared configuration of the bottom of the dispenser achieves the necessary increase in coin holding capacity, improves the actual gravity-assisted product dispensing mode, and enables the use of the same standard wall-attached dispenser support plate and the same convenient mode of attachment of the dispenser to the support plate as well as the convenient swinging mode of operation to and from the vertical lock and forwardly inclined servicing positions of the dispenser.
Other features and advantages of the invention will appear to those skilled in the art during the course of the following description. It should be noted that the invention is applicable equally to single column or multi-column dispensers, a single column dispenser being shown in the drawings for ease of illustration. It should also be mentioned that the invention can be embodied in newly-manufactured machines or can be added to existing machines in the field in the form of a retrofit kit.